Press Release

ECSO Public session

20 June 2018,
Brussels

Presenting the achievements of the cPPP

The Open Session, as a part of the 2nd Annual General Assembly of European Cyber Security Organisation (ECSO), took place on 20th June 2018. During the public event, the entire European cybersecurity community stakeholders were introduced to the objectives, accomplishments and future goals of ECSO. The institutional perspective on European cyber area was presented by the European Commission and the incoming Austrian Presidency of the Council of the European Union.

During the first two years of the implementation of the cPPP, ECSO has reached significant achievements. The association has built an ever-growing cyber community of more than 200 members across Europe and established 6 working groups, dealing with the different aspects of cybersecurity industrial policy. These include such important aspects as standardisation and certification, investments and market deployment, cyber education and training, strategic research as well as the analysis of sectoral needs and the support to SMEs and regional ecosystems.

The establishment of the dialogue between various cyber security stakeholders, enabled ECSO to provide valuable recommendations and contribute to European Commission’s, Council’s and Parliaments cybersecurity policy initiatives, including Cybersecurity Act, Industrial Cybersecurity Policy, Cybersecurity Competence Centres, MFF and Horizontal Working Party on Cyber Issues.

In her keynote speech delivered during the event, Despina Spanou, Director for Digital Society, Trust and Cybersecurity at European Commission, noted that public-private dialogue in cybersecurity is indispensable. According to her, European Commission relies on the help of ECSO and its members in launching different cyber security policy initiatives and bringing EU member states, European industry and investors together at the same table.

Martin Fazokas, Cyber Security Officer at Federal Chancellery of Austria, outlined cyber security priorities of the incoming Austrian EU-Presidency. In his remarks to the audience, he emphasized that cyber security will remain on top of the agenda in the forthcoming months. Building on the successful work done so far by the Estonian and Bulgarian Presidencies, Austria will concentrate on finalizing the Cyber Security Act and on agreeing on cyber resilience measures in various sectors across Europe.

Addressing the future challenges, Luigi Rebuffi, Secretary General of ECSO, noted that there is still a lot to be done until robust and ambitious European cyber ecosystem will be fully created. ‘In order to be able to adequately respond to cyber-attacks within the Union, we need to ensure a sustainable coordination among European policymakers, end-users, cyber industry and research centres. This will remain our main focus in the future’ – he said.

Since its creation 2 years ago, ECSO and its members have been working on developing European cyber space and supporting the Commission in implementing European cyber security agenda and protecting the EU’s digital single market.